Gandharavada

SR No.: 006739
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Esther A Solomon
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyasabha
Publication Year: 1966
Total Pages: 400
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 56

47
BONDAGE AND EMANCIPATION OF THE SOUL.
The question of bondage and emancipation, whether there is anything like bondage or emancipation is discussed in Ganadharavada, 6 and the nature of emancipation in Gaṇadharavada, 11.
There are conflicting statements in the scriptures which "Sa say: esa viguno vibhur na badhyate samsarati va, na mucyate mocayati va, na va esa bahyam abhyantaram va veda" [This soul is all-pervading and quality less. Neither is it bound nor does it transmigrate. It is not freed (from karman) nor does it free (karman); it knows neither the (external nor the internal]; and also "Na ha vai sasarī rasya priyapriyayor apahatir asti, aśarīram va vasantam priyapriye na sprśatah" (The embodied soul can never be free from pleasure and pain, while these do not affect the soul as it exists in an unembodied state). The former statement says that bondage and emancipation have no reality, whereas the latter statement implies their reality. Dialectical arguments also lead one to question them. If bondage means the union of the jiva (soul) with karman, has this union a beginning or is it beginningless? If it has a beginning, did the jiva exist first or karman? Or were they simultaneously produced? Bondage cannot be explained in the light of any of these. (i) Jiva cannot exist before karman, for like the ass's horn it would have no cause and so would be unproduced. What is produced without a cause should also perish without one. Even if jiva is beginningless, there cannot be its union with karman without a cause, for if this union were there without any cause, it would occur in the state of emancipation also. If the soul be thought to have no union with karman, it is ever emancipated; or in the absence of bondage, the question of emancipation does not arise at all. (ii) Kaiman cannot be there before jiva which is regarded as its karty (dcer, agent). If karma be produced without a cause, it would also perish without one.
2
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This is the Samkhya and the Kevaladvaita view.